The early birds ...

... catch the worms. Fa­mous ac­tors who got an early start.

The Star Malaysia - Star2
- 2017-07-30
- Tv
- Moss started act­ing way be­fore her By LUAINE LEE Break­ing suc­cess. — Pho­tos: Agen­cies By Me Savage at­tended au­di­tions at the lo­cal com­mu­nity the­atre cen­tre when he was six. Parker is best known for her role as Car­rie Brad­shaw in

WHILE the rest of us are try­ing to fig­ure out what to do with our lives, there are some who know from birth.

Many young ac­tors grew up with stage moth­ers push­ing them to fame. But the most suc­cess­ful are those who chose the field for them­selves at an early age.

Ac­tor Fred Savage, who guided us through The Won­der Years ,is now a full-fledged grown-up and costar­ring in Friends From Col­lege.

Savage says the idea of act­ing was all his. “I was six and there were au­di­tions be­ing held at the lo­cal com­mu­nity cen­tre where I grew up in Glen­coe, a sub­urb of Chicago. So me and all my friends, we all went. It would be fun.

“Then the di­rec­tor called me a cou­ple of times. I got to go down­town, I wanted to go. I didn’t get any­thing, but I liked go­ing ...

“All my friends were on base­ball or hockey teams and I didn’t have a thing. So this was kind of cool. Then they called me for a Pac-Man vi­ta­min com­mer­cial. My mum said – we didn’t know any­thing about the busi­ness – ‘You’ve been to two of th­ese al­ready and not got any­thing, maybe it’s a waste of time.’

“I said, ‘Oh, let’s go, let’s go!’ That was the first job I got. Ev­ery job and ev­ery au­di­tion that fol­lowed, it was that same en­thu­si­asm and ex­cite­ment.”

Elis­a­beth Moss, who jet­ted to fame as the deter­mined Peggy Olson on Mad Men, and is nav­i­gat­ing a new world in The Hand­maid’s Tale, says she wanted to be an ac­tress from the get-go.

“I never think of my­self as a child ac­tor. I don’t feel that dif­fer­ent from when I was six. I loved act­ing and that’s that. I wanted to do it and there was re­ally no ques­tion about it.

“I did bal­let from five to 15, so I went back and forth be­tween those two. And at 15, I de­cided to just go with act­ing be­cause it was more ful­fill­ing for me.” Aaron Paul from Break­ing Bad and now star­ring in The Path, thinks act­ing is in his DNA. “I feel like I’ve been act­ing ever since I was born. I knew at a very young age I wanted to do this.

“I was do­ing lit­tle short plays since I was a lit­tle kid, and I just loved be­ing in front of peo­ple and do­ing make-believe. That’s kind of what I sought out as a young kid; just pre­tend­ing, play­ing, and I never wanted to stop.

“When I turned 12 years old and was in­tro­duced to films like Stand

and Goonies, I saw those as kids pre­tend­ing, do­ing make-believe on such a grand scale, and I just thought to my­self, ‘Well, if they can do it, why can’t I?’ A young kid from Boise, Idaho, I just wanted to chase af­ter it.”

Sarah Jes­sica Parker (Sex And The City, Di­vorce) says she started per­form­ing as a child. “It’s enorthrilling mously to act. It’s hard to de­scribe why be­cause it’s like a feel­ing. It’s hard to find words to ar­tic­u­late.

“I re­mem­ber when I first ex­pe­ri­enced it be­cause I wasn’t strong aca­dem­i­cally in school. And chil­dren hate not feel­ing good at what they have to do, it’s a ter­ri­ble feel­ing.

“And I did The Lit­tle Match Girl when I was lit­tle for NBC. I re­mem­ber when the cam­eras rolled and I was act­ing, I felt eu­phoric. I didn’t know any­thing about act­ing, and still don’t know very much. It’s hard to ex­plain.

“It’s why rock singers love to sing ... It’s great to be some­one else, to be­have in dif­fer­ent ways, to say things you wouldn’t nor­mally say, to be cruel or silly or sad. It’s so weird and so thrilling.” Sean Mur­ray who plays Agent McGee on NCIS started act­ing when he was 12. “I’m the op­po­site case of most kids in this busi­ness who have the so-called ‘stage par­ents’.

“I begged my par­ents, and I’d been beg­ging for years – I knew I wanted to be an ac­tor from a very early age.

“I’d put on shows for my par­ents when they’d get home in the af­ter­noon. I’d be re­hears­ing some­thing. I’d come up with cos­tumes and mu­sic and put on th­ese lit­tle shows, just like my daugh­ter does now, which is so funny.

“She’s do­ing a lot of the­atre in school be­cause she loves do­ing it. She’s not aware that there’s a busi­ness at­tached to it. So for me, that couldn’t be bet­ter.

“Peo­ple say, ‘You don’t want your daugh­ter to be an ac­tress.’ I say, ‘I want my daugh­ter to be happy. I care about her be­ing happy more than any­thing.’

“So she’s do­ing all this the­atre work and hav­ing such a won­der­ful time do­ing it.”

Some of her class­mates have agents and were talk­ing to her about it.

“She said, ‘Daddy, there’s some girls that say they’re ac­tors at the school and they’re au­di­tion­ing for com­mer­cials. Is that act­ing?’ I say, ‘No, honey. That’s work­ing’.” – Tri­bune News Ser­vice